Longmont can bid on the bones of Twin Peaks Mall

Pacific Auction busy cataloguing everything that can be sold; auction slated for late spring/early summer

By Tony Kindelspire

Times-Call staff writer

Posted:
03/13/2014 09:29:41 PM MDT

Updated:
03/14/2014 08:11:05 AM MDT

The dismantling of Twin Peaks Mall has begun.

The beginning of the end has not being signaled by the explosive crash of a wrecking ball, but rather by the sound of pickup trucks pulling away loaded down with benches, tables and chairs, flower pots and shelving.

NewMark Merrill Mountain States, the mall's owner, has already brought in Habitat for Humanity and ReSource to haul away any of the more portable items that the nonprofit organizations wanted at no charge to them.

Next — and this is still some weeks away — will come an auction for the bigger stuff.

Pacific Auction owner O.J. Pratt takes notes on items inside the former Country Buffet at Twin Peaks Mall. ReSource and Habitat for Humanity have already removed some of the more portables pieces of the mall, but everything else that's left — including the sneeze guards from the buffet table — will be auctioned off. (Matthew Jonas / Times-Call)

"When you look at these redevelopments like this, recycling is good but reuse and repurposing is better," said Luke McFetridge, regional property manager for NewMark Merrill. "The auction is basically the next step for us, and that's looking at the things that aren't as easily removable."

NewMark Merrill took a similar approach to deconstruction when it was dismantling Nate's Restaurant inside the company's Fort Collins Marketplace Shopping Center, but the mall — which is about a half-million square foot building — is obviously a much larger scale.

NewMark Merrill has hired Longmont's Pacific Auction to catalogue and sell off everything it can. For owner O.J. Pratt and his team, that means methodically going through and cataloguing everything in the mall that can possibly be sold.

Some things, such as brick, will be too labor-intensive to remove and, McFetridge said, will be turned into road base upon demolition of the building. The idea is to keep as much out of the landfill as possible.

But other than that, the auction will be — fittingly, for a mall — an "everything must go" sale.

"I did one down in Denver that was the 'Old Ladies Home,' that's what it was called," Pratt said. "It was right across from Elitch's. We sold the elevator, we sold the wiring, we sold the carpeting, we sold the fixtures.

"When you break it down into components it's really not that overwhelming."

He said his company is trying to get permission from the city to auction off some of the outside trees and bushes in advance of the main auction, so that it can be successfully transplanted.

The main auction likely won't be until late spring or early summer, McFetridge said.

Along with standard building and retail store components are some unique fixtures, such as the 90 to 100 Knox-Boxes in the building. A Knox-Box is something every retailer is required to have, Pratt said; it allows firefighters and other emergency responders to enter a store without having to destroy anything.

"Those boxes cost $300 apiece to go buy new, and every unit in there has one," Pratt said.

He said aerial photography is being used to catalogue the items on the roof, such as skylights and HVAC systems.

McFetridge said NewMark Merrill won't be setting any minimum price on anything at the auction because it wants to see as as much as possible be bought and reused.

Ten percent of the proceeds from the auction will be donated to the I Have a Dream Foundation, he added.

McFetridge said there are still a handful of tenants remaining in the mall, but once a time is set for the auction for certain, that will effectively put an end to Twin Peaks Mall.

"In between (that time and complete demolition) we're going to have an empty mall, which gives us a fabulous opportunity for training," McFetridge said. "I'd like the opportunity to get our local law enforcement and fire department into the building."

That's already starting this week, with the Boulder County Bomb Squad going in to do some training with its robot.

Complete demolition of the mall building, which opened in 1985, will occur sometime this summer, and then construction will begin on Village at the Peaks, an open-air, $80 million redevelopment of the 75-acre mall property. An opening is planned for the 2015 holiday season. Whole Foods, Sam's Club and a state-of-the-art United Artists movie theater are scheduled to anchor the new center.